Monday, December 31: Read the latest on this case at RIAA Brief: Washington Post Gets It Wrong.
Update (12/12 @ 1:10 p.m.): Check out blogger Jeff Graham’s comment:
“I think the thing that gets me is the ‘All-holy’ RIAA standing on their pedestal like Jesse Jackson [Heh!] and screaming about how we’re endangering the livelihood of struggling artists everywhere. The fact is that artists only get a few cents off of every CD sold. Where does the rest of the money go? You tell me. I wish they would just stand up and say who they’re really representing.”
I remember seeing a chart that breaks down who gets what from an album’s sale, and the artist gets a small cut compared to the record label. Can’t remember where I saw the chart, though. If you find such a chart, please post the link in the comment section.
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Are you involved in the music industry in some way (artist, producer, sales clerk, whatever)? I’d love to get your feedback on this post.
If you believed yesterday’s buzz on the tech and music sides of the blogosphere, you would have been angry.
Some blogs reported that the influential Recording Industry Association of America (fondly known as the RIAA) argued in a supplemental brief filed last week in an illegal downloading case that ripping your own CDs to your own hard drive and transferring the files to your own digital music player, something I mentioned doing in Death to DRM, are illegal. (Hat tip: Mark La Roi)
Whoa…slow down, Silver.
Copyright Makes Right
The RIAA’s mission is to protect recording artists’ intellectual property and First Amendment rights. And the organization is serious about its mission. The RIAA recently sent “pre-lawsuit” letters to 22 colleges, warning them about the use of the schools’ computer networks for piracy (unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted work).
If you regularly read this blog and have faithfully followed along as I wade through a new-to-me pool of digital music tech blogging, you know there’s an ongoing battle between artists and music downloaders. The RIAA, among others, has been catching it from music downloaders. The RIAA seeks to protect artists’ copyrights, and some music consumers believe they should be allowed to download music without paying for it and/or share music they’ve acquired legally with others.
Legally speaking, if you don’t have the copyright holder’s permission to share his work, you can’t share it.
The Internet has made it easy to find and acquire “free” music, but copyright law, about 200 years old, is still in effect. What is copyright? When you create something (a recording, a piece of writing, a painting, a blog, etc.), you have the exclusive right to that work. And you don’t have to file with the U.S. Copyright Office. Your rights are automatically vested in the work when you create it. You can make copies of it, distribute it, and grant others a license to use it. Under current copyright law, your work is protected for your lifetime and 70 years after your death (if created after 1978).
(Did you know that copying and pasting someone’s entire blog post to your blog, without the blogger’s permission, is a copyright violation? Under the fair use doctrine, you may copy a small portion of it for certain purposes.)
Piracy is rampant, and there’s little artists have been able to do about it. But now it seems courts are making examples of illegal downloaders. This woman was fined $220,000 for illegal file sharing.
Can’t Rip Your Own CDs?
Did the RIAA really say consumers can’t make copies of their own CDs?
Of course not. (More discussion at ZDNet here and here.)
According to the RIAA’s 21-page supplemental brief, Atlantic Recording Corporation v. Pamela and Jeffrey Howell (PDF), a couple called the Howells allegedly distributed “copyrighted material” on Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing network. Some blogs reported that the RIAA argued that ripping your own CDs is illegal.
Here’s what the RIAA actually said: The defendants stored copyrighted material in a Kazaa shared folder on their computer and distributed this material to another in violation of the copyholder’s rights.
The RIAA took it a step further and argued that a “consummated transfer” isn’t necessary for a violation to have occurred. As long as a copyrighted file is stored in a shared folder (as opposed to a “My Music” folder), copyright has been violated. Actual distribution isn’t necessary. It comes down to availability.
So, if the cops kicked in my door and searched my computers’ hard drives for signs of illegal file sharing activity, as long as my music files are stored in “My Music” or other folder where only I have access (assuming I’m a legal licensee of the file), I haven’t violated anyone’s copyright.
But if they find such files in a shared folder or in a peer-to-peer file sharing network folder from a service not authorized to share music (no licensing deal with artists or express permission to share files), I’m toast. If such files are in shared folders, they are “available” for illegal transfer. Follow that?
The blogospheric hyperventilating could have been avoided if the bloggers had read, or at least skimmed, the brief. But still, the whole thing is crazy. It’s going to get pretty expensive, not to mention impractical, to prosecute individuals who illegally transfer or “make available” copyrighted digital music on their computers. The Internet has changed the way people do a lot of things. Practically speaking, the courts can’t protect artists’ copyrights when millions of violations occur all day, every day.
1) Pretend you’re still in sixth grade and pick a side: Consumer or recording industry?
2) Your solution(s)?
Here’s mine: I suggest, as a temporary solution to the illegal downloading problem, that artists attach an “implied license” to digital renderings of their work to allow consumers to copy, share, and transfer files at will until copyright law is rewritten for the digital age. The alternative is expensive and protracted litigation against individuals like Jammie Thomas. Then again, the artists still won’t get paid from all that downloading and transferring.
If you’re interested in following this and other illegal downloading cases and digital music news in general, read and bookmark the following blogs (and check out their blogrolls):
- Recording Industry vs. The People – Intensely dislikes the RIAA
- Listening Post
- Ars Technica
- Digital Media Wire
- Our Digital Music
- HypeBot
Related posts:
- Bands Seek Cut of Resold Concert Ticket Action
- Old Fogie Embraces New Medium…
- Can RCRD LBL Save the Music Industry?
